A Big Dummy Longtail

NuVinci N360

flatboarder — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:36:05 +0000

Fallbrook Technologies stellt die neue stufenlose NuVinci N360 Getriebenabe mit 360% Übersetzungverhältnis vor, die lt. Hersteller mit nun 2450g um 30% leichter als das Vorgängermodell ist. Details liefert die verlinkte Herstellerwebseite. Über den Wirkungsgrad finde ich wie schon beim Vormodell keine Angaben, und das Gewicht ist nach wie vor relativ hoch. Für Fahrräder ohne Leichtbauanforderungen oder für Lastenfahrräder ist die Technik auf jeden Fall interessant.

Update: In der Newsgroup de.rec.fahrrad wurde mir dazu dankenswerterweise der Link auf den Fahrbericht in phil’s velo blog genannt.

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Comprehensive test of dynohub USB chargers

flatboarder — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:27:42 +0000

The Fahrradzukunft magazine published a highly interesting review about dynohub chargers conducted by dynohub manufacturer Schmidt and others. The article was published in German language and unfortunately does not cover my Jawetec charger due to its unavailability. However, there are several interesting devices including the pedalpower+ stuff (check my link bar for more information on it!).
Update: the Fahrradzukunft magazine recently published part II of the USB charger article with some more very interesting devices and updates.

A short note on this blog: Most likely I will continue writing this blog at slow rate in German language. Xtracycle released several very interesting new addons and pannier kits and things are going on, but it is not such a big hype anymore. I believe it is worth of talking about in our native language, although big dummy cargo bicycles are still not a big issue here. At least, people realize the concept is useful, and I still love its great versatility and riding style.

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Jawetec site down

flatboarder — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:04:09 +0000

I have been successfully using the jawetec bikecharger in combination with several devices for several trips at my bicycle, and I really like it. Today I received the information Jawetec’s web page is no longer available. Currently I have no clue whether their bike charger is still available somewhere. Since this great little gadget has been mentioned many times within this blog, please be aware that any links to the Jawetec page from this blog have become obsolete. I do not know, what happened to the company. In my opinion the Jawetec charger is one of the most useful accessories with bicycles and dynohubs, and I very much regret if production is stopped. There are similar products out there, but those are more expensive than the lightweighted, sophisticated, reliable and small Jawetec bike charger.

By the way, in spite of the fact that this blog has not seen updates for quite a long time, the Big Dummy is in happy use. 2009 milage compares to 2008′s. Snafu Knob Job tires, however, show far better durability than the Fat Franks used before. Apart from that, the Token bottom bracket again shows up some outer slackness, so I will probably use ordinary Shimano square tapered or whatever in the future.

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The Salzburg Meeting

flatboarder — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:18:22 +0000

Every now and then there are certain highlights that I am thankful for and enjoy them very much. It has been a busy summer and I had to reduce some of my occupations. There was not much time left for anything. However, we finally managed to meet nearly 6 months after his arrival at Salzburg. I am talking about Robert from Ohio who had his Big Dummy shipped to Salzburg from the US, and who will be leaving soon. I was in fear we would completely fail to meet at all.

I will be thinking a lot about those things we discussed as like our environment, nature, cycling, big dummy bicycles and Surly bikes, motorcycles, work, family, economy, USA, Austria. Once more I may indicate my dedication to cycling even this time where my bicycling percentage has dropped due to time and many other constraints.
Robert, I wish you a nice trip back home and I will be looking forward to your next visit over here.

2nd Big Dummy Bicycle at Salzburg/Austria?

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Alpe Adria

flatboarder — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 08:03:10 +0000

Near Latisana

Due to lack of fitness I had to cancel our plans for doing the Route des Grandes Alpes on the Big Dummy this year. Instead, we did a relaxed 6 day slope from Austria to northern Italy, visiting the Adriatic sea and back via Slovenia.

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Day 1 (Villach – Osoppo)
It started out with some short 25km from home to the train station at horrific weather. Riding exposed to a heavy thunderstorm, fighting strong head wind and massive rain was kind of bad start. However, when reaching Villach by train through continuous extraordinary rain, it started to light up slowly. After a while the rain stopped and we rode to Tarvisio at dry conditions. It even became sunny that day and we were happy when arriving at our hotel in Osoppo.

Day 2 (Osoppo – Caorle)
A sunny and relaxed ride along the Tagliamento river passing several sleepy little towns with nice bars. We found some Bed&Breakfast accomodation where we slept in a rolling home. In the evening we took a bath in the Adriatic sea at Caorle beach and had our dinner in a good fish restaurant in the beautiful center of Caorle.

Day 3 (Caorle – Grado)
Going along the Caorle Laguna via San Gaetano and finding some route nearmost to the sea, we passed by Aquileia and stayed at some Hotel at Grado.

Day 4 (Grado – San Pietro al Natisone)
After leaving Grado, we visited the archaeological excavations of Aquileia and spent some time there. Then we went to Palmanova and Cividale, two awesome cities. In Cividale we took a bath in the river Natisone. Along the beautiful Natisone we rode on direction Pulfero and Slovenia and stopped at San Pietro al Natisone. At dinner, we had a special dessert: Gubana, some dry cake fully soaked with Grappa. Cheers. Ouch.

Day 5 (San Pietro al Natisone – Paternion)
From San Pietro we went to Slovenia passing by Kobarid and Bovec, heading towards the Passo Predil. It was steady uphill all the time. From Passo Predil we went down back to Italy and finished at Villach Austria, where we departed. From now on I was on my own and took the Drautal bikeway to Paternion, where I found a nice and cheap accomodation.

Day 6 (Paternion – Golling)
I wanted to get home in one day. 197km and two hard climbs. First climb, the Katschberg pass, was probably the hardest uphill ever with my Big Dummy. Continuous slope of up to 21% for probably 500m of elevation with my 8 speed internal hub and all the baggage was a killer. With some intentional photo and water breaks I did it, but I was exhausted. Next uphill to Obertauern was relaxed, compared to the former one. From Obertauern I went down to Radstadt and rode on direction Salzburg. After 157km and probably 2000m of elevation I decided to take a train and a bus for the final 40km, since the extreme hot weather all over sudden changed into nasty headwind and heavy thunderstorms.

Conclusion
After all, the Big Dummy and the Alfine drive train once more proved reliable for touring. No problems at all. Also, I was very pleased with the Snafu Knob Job tires that worked well for both paved and gravel roads. The mobile power plant as mentioned in previous articles worked flawlessly. The dynohub power supply kept my GPS operational all 6 days without any outage and without use of internal batteries. Even at slow uphill passages without sufficient dynohub feed the Powertank was durable enough to last on.

Lombardia

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Two child seats on one Big Dummy

flatboarder — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 09:58:13 +0000

There are several solutions for two child seats on one Big Dummy. Here is mine with two child seats bolted on the snapdeck safely. See my previous articles on mounting the first child seat. It worked similar with the second one.

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Testing the Mobile Power Plant

flatboarder — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Today was my first test ride for the new power supply device chain: new dynohub SON 20R, JaWeTec Bikecharger, SwissBatteries PowerTank M, Garmin Oregon GPS without internal batteries, Schmidt Edelux lights playing all together. I did some short slope of probably 45km with some 1300m of elevation. Most of the uphills were too slow to keep the bikecharger charging the Powertanks internal battery, so I switched it off at uphills and let the Powertank drive the GPS on its own. At first image those two Powertank LEDs are visible. A red one indicating charging state and a blue one indicating some device at USB out consuming power.

With such short ride I could not enforce any power outage and I could not determine whether the GPS would empty the Powertank quicker than it could be recharged by the bikecharger. No problems today. The Garmin GPS ran continuously without internal batteries, performing routing, showing maps, trip computer and several other jobs permanently. No power saving mode, but no backlight, though.

Charging of the Powertank starts at less than 10km/h with the SON 20R dynohub. As soon as speed goes further down, one should consider switching off the bikecharger to protect the Powertank from those remaining slow pulses at DC out of the bikecharger no longer being able to provide constant voltage from dynohub out.

There is one more interesting experience: with the SON 20R there is no need to switch on the lights when reaching speed of 50km/h to protect the bikecharger from dynohub overvoltage. Actually the charger would switch off itself automatically for that reason. I had to take care about this when using the stronger SON 28S dynohub.
On the other hand, I found out, as soon as switching on the lights, there is not enough power to charge the powertank, no matter how fast I am riding. With my previous installation it looked as like there was enough power left to charge the GPS even when lights would shine, but there definitely is not. The Powertanks red LED will not even flash slowly with lights switched on. So that was not a very good idea, anyway. Something that I will no longer pay any attention to.

Finally some words on installation and weight: the whole collection of USB devices and cables including GPS but without dynohub and lights makes up 342g. See third image. Installation looks some kind of messy at the moment, but everything will be protected by some small bag mounted at top tube. At final stage there will by two wires from the top tube bag to handlebar and the GPS at the handlebar. Should look quite clean. Need to get appropriate bag.

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Bikecharger, Powertank M, Oregon

flatboarder — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:03:17 +0000

Mobile power supply chain

The image shows my new ensemble of USB gadgets, the mobile power supply chain I will be using for further touring. Located uppermost is the JaWeTec bikecharger, that I had used formerly. See my previous posts about this topic. The bikecharger is connected to the dynohub und will create constant DC of 5V at its USB-out which is wired to DC-in of the new lightweighted SwissBatteries PowerTank M. This basically is some sort of optimized rechargable LiPo battery pack with some electronic circuit. The PowerTank will on the other hand permanently feed the Garmin GPS (without internal batteries) at its USB-out. This works, but I need to test whether the bikecharger will be able to keep up enough power level to ensure continuous operation of the GPS in the long run.

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Custom coloured Dummies by Xtracycle

flatboarder — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:08:55 +0000

Xtracycle offers some custom program for new Big Dummies, together with those previous options of frame kit and complete build. In my opinion this is a pretty good idea and a valuable option for us Big Dummy home designers. I think custom colors are totally appropriate for Big Dummies.

My friend Markus, who had created some comments at this blog, sent me a flickr link showing pictures of a purple big dummy. I like this. Check these custom freeloaders! Great.

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2nd Big Dummy Bicycle at Salzburg/Austria?

flatboarder — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:36:40 +0000

Robert from Ohio/USA, riding a Big Dummy at home, contacted me some months ago, announcing his visit to Austria. He was going to move to Salzburg for some longer period of time, visiting his Salzburg family and thinking about getting another Big Dummy frame over here, just bringing his parts with him, since he did not want to stay without a big dummy cycle (yes, that is quite an issue).
Today Robert emailed me about his arrival in Austria and it turned out he had taken the whole thing with him:
“Yes, I ‘m now back in Salzburg and have brought my BD with me as extra baggage for $200 dollars (about 150euro) as this was the most appropriate method (cheapest) rather than shipping just the parts and buying a frame over here.”

See Roberts pictures how to airmail a complete big dummy bicycle. 200$ is not that much, especially keeping in mind, that I once had to pay EUR 300(!!!) for shipping some small package with bicycle parts from Taiwan to Austria.

He also states:
“I would be very glad to have an article in your blog about having the 2nd BD in Austria, in fact I have been looking forward to this since your first email.”

I am happy to drop in this article. Actually, I am not really sure whether there are only two Big Dummy bicycles in Austria (I realize, one of my E-mails did indicate this), but in fact this may very well be the second BD in the Salzburg area. At least, I have never met any Big Dummies over here and there are no comments of Austrian BD riders in this blog. However, Surly as a bicycle manufacturer is rather wellknown over here.

Robert went for a ride with a local cycling club (see pictures). I am very much looking forward to have a beer with him, since we have not yet been able to meet up to now, and weather is still very bad. So maybe we need to wait some more time until those two big dummies can be captured on one picture with those two happy riders.

Please note these are Roberts pictures, that I am publishing here. Thanks a lot!

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